Idiosyncrasies
by Say Hello To Your Last Goodbye
Summary: After being captured, Sakura learns more about human beings than she ever thought she would. ItaSaku


Sakura awoke to the feel of cool stone beneath her throbbing head. Raising a hand to ease the pain, she realized that her chakra supply was near depleted. She would injure herself much more severely in trying to heal herself than she would by not attempting to.

_One day, Samehada, you and your chakra-consuming ways will be at the mercy of these hands,_ Sakura thought, flexing said hands wantonly.

Sakura stopped her movements as soon as she saw the eerie shadows cast about. A bare bulb hung, flickering every so often and thus rendering Sakura incapable of shaking the image of fidgeting shadows from her mind. The dark entities reminded her infallibly of the reports she'd had to write about the victims of Akatsuki torture. An involuntary shudder wracked its way through her body as she struggled to keep her mind from wandering too deeply into the memories she held of what the remaining form, or rather, the _lack_ of form remaining, would usually look like.

She couldn't control the tremor brought about in her hand as she brought to mind all of the valuable information she held. She supposed that much of that information was already at the at the Akatsuki's disposal, and perhaps anyone outside of Konoha would not understand the importance of what color undergarments Tsunade preferred to wear, but Sakura was still certain that she held some sort of priceless piece of knowledge that she would be tortured into giving up.

Sakura knew that killing herself would be the only way to seal away her information, but she had no means of doing so. She could cause herself extreme pain, so much that she would probably slip into a coma, yes, but kill herself, no.

_Wait a minute, if I tried to heal my head, my complete absence of chakra would carry me into a coma. It would hurt, but protecting Konoha is much more important than a little pain,_ she thought, steeling herself to do it.

Her hands were shaking as she held them up to her head, about to torture her nerve cells for the sake of keeping the rest of herself from being tortured. Sakura's chakra took a long time coming to her hands and the familiar glow was barely present as she slowly forced the last dregs of her power into healing her minor head wound.

A searing burn ran through her empty chakra channels, her cells all screaming at their need. A gasp leapt from her lips as the pain coursed through her body in reverberating waves. She saw a faint silhouette against the light of the unreliable bulb until her vision slipped into flaming white with pain. She heard a loud slam and a shout and then she knew no more.

_

* * *

_

_Foolish girl,_ Itachi thought_,_ splashing water onto the deep frown on his face_. Did she really believe that we would allow her to remove her conscious self from our resources? She should have known that a chakra-depletion-induced coma would be something that an Akatsuki member could easily deal with._

Itachi took a step back from the running water of the stainless steel sink he stood behind and glanced up at the mirror set into the wall. He traced the lines of fatigue that reflected each other diagonally on either side of his nose.

_Foolish girl, she also took away from my sleep. She gasps very loudly. And now she has to sleep on the futon by Kisame's bed, so I was able to hear her talk in her sleep for the rest of the night. Of course Kisame didn't hear a thing because he sleeps like a rock. I should ask Deidara to come stay with us so he can supervise that annoying effeminate masochist. _

Itachi exited his bathroom to be welcomed by the familiar chill of cool air on his shower-warmed skin. He set off for the kitchen to scrounge for breakfast food and was met with a sight he'd never even imagined.

"Kisame, what, may I ask, are you trying to accomplish right now?" Itachi asked, a sincere look of surprise casting his frown from his face.

"I'm cooking breakfast. There were some eggs in the fridge and I found some bacon, so I decided to cook for our guest. I have found that the people we capture and manipulate are less resistant when their stomachs are content," Kisame replied nonchalantly.

"I was unaware of your ability to cook," was Itachi's reply, his countenance bearing a less expressive air.

"I've never really had a reason to cook before. We usually eat out, you know. I would bake for you on your birthday if you would ever tell me when that is."

"June 9th," said a voice that was much more feminine than that of Itachi as an agitated face poked its way through the doorway. "His birthday is June 9th."

Itachi quickly walked towards the new face as Kisame blinked several times and committed the aforementioned date to memory while returning to his cooking.

"Haruno-san, how do you feel?" Itachi asked politely, making certain that she had not actually injured herself with her antics from the previous night.

"Like you care," Sakura snapped, stepping closer to her captor in her aggression. At the moment, it didn't matter that Itachi could break her in an instant or that he could force whatever information he wanted from her mouth faster than she could blink. It only mattered that Itachi knew she wouldn't allow him to mess with her attempt to keep her integrity as a kunoichi intact.

"Your physical condition does actually matter to me, believe it or not," Itachi replied as politely as before.

"In that case, I'm tired, annoyed, uncomfortable with being in a house with two older, stronger men, and capable of eating a zebra unless I get some of that food that Big Blue over there is cooking."

"But you are not injured?"

"No, unfortunately. Apparently the Bingo Book lied; you do have a healing background," Sakura retorted, sitting at the wooden table that stood beside Kisame.

Sakura absentmindedly picked up the fork that laid waiting in front of her and opted to twirl it as she tried to discreetly check the ingredients of Kisame's eggs and bacon while the two foods simmered over the stove.

A full plate of food was soon plopped onto the table next to what was now a full glass of orange juice. Sakura's mouth watered at the thought of eating and she was a little hasty in her usual poison screening of the food in her anxiousness to eat. She silently hoped for the food to not hold a truth serum or any other such substance as she speared a section of egg and lifted her fork to her mouth.

Regrettably, that particular portion of food never made its way to Sakura's eager salivary glands since she threw her fork instinctively when she heard a loud noise in the hall outside of the kitchen. A loud crash followed and Sakura sat nervously, beginning to eat her bacon as she awaited a reaction.


End file.
